Ottomans are too easy!

[mikenine1962]

Aabraxan, and Spoonwood, at the risk of more punishment on the ropes I was looking at the contact governor settings for Sid level small world HOF wins and I didn't come across any governor settings with production ticked a lot / most had food ticked I looked at ( domination and diplomacy and cultural wins), one or two games had no governor options ticked.

 

[Aabraxan]

Mikenine1962, first of all, I'm not interested in punishing you, and I sincerely doubt Spoonwood is, either. I don't think I've ever looked at the saves you mentioned, at least not with an eye towards examining the governor settings. However, down in Stories and Tales, there's an emperor-level game called "Gma02: First Come, First Severed." We put together a warrior/settler pump in that one where you could clearly see the "emphasize production" at work. IIRC, on the first turn of the cycle, the city made 8 shields per turn and grew. When it did, it built a warrior on that first turn. IOW, the city grew, the new citizen picked up a forest, and out popped a warrior. Give me a minute to dig around and I'll try to find you a link to a save.

 

[mikenine1962]

Aabraxan, Can you explain what abbreviations OTOH IIUC stand for. and IIRC and IOW

with respect to HoF games, the 20k game becomes completely different. You just turn random-seed off, and reload until you get an SGL on every tech you research

Spoonwood Can you explain SGL stands for.

 

[Aabraxan]

I couldn't find you a save that was clearly labeled for examining the combo factory, so I'll have to look when I get to my civ computer.
OTOH = on the other hand
IOW = in other words
IIUC = if I understand correctly
SGL = Scientific Great Leader

 

[vmxa]

Aabraxan, Can you explain what abbreviations OTOH IIUC stand for. and IIRC and IOW

with respect to HoF games, the 20k game becomes completely different. You just turn random-seed off, and reload until you get an SGL on every tech you research

Spoonwood Can you explain SGL stands for.

They may or many not reload, no real need to as they would just abandon the game and start a new one, if they do not get the SGL with the correct timing. What most do is to run a map gen app and set up some parms.

This forces only games with the required things to be saved. Then they select the best one and play, if it fails in some way, they either select another or run off a new set.

Reloads do occur, even though the games are supposed to be check for excessive reloads. Not sure what execessive is as one of the best know games was reloaded over 300 times and is still in the HoF.

 

[Aabraxan]

OK, mikenine, I'm still not at my civ computer, but I got a few minutes to dig around. You'll find Gma02 here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=221622

If you go to page 10, post 195, there's a save there. I'm not sure if it's all cued up and ready, but we developed Entremont into a combo factory, which produced warrior/settler pairs. At the beginning of the cycle, Entremont starts with 0 shields in the bin, and is an 8 spt town. On that first turn, the citizens put their shilds in the bin, the town grows, and the new citizen grabs 2 shields off of a forest, and out pops a warrior. Here's a post that describes the cycle in a little more detail: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5492500&postcount=307

There's lots and lots to read in that thread, but it was a training game, so that's to be expected. If you have some time, it might be worth the read. When I get to my civ comp, I'll see if I have any good saves to demonstrate the governor in action, or I might download one of the old Gma02 saves and tune it up so that you can really see governor at work.

 

[mikenine1962]

Aabraxan, I found the game loaded it and as you say a very productive capital city, but I’m not sure how much of a difference changing governor - emphasise production to food would make. Or indeed how you could show the difference. I can see that micro management can yield better productivity. The main reason for the high ( 4 extra food ) yield appears to be that you’ve irrigated the cattle square. Which dare I say is independent of emphasising either food or production. So I might be being selective here but, I would now conclude, its very difficult to show the advantage of emphasise production over emphasise food, and I am now not convinced any emphasis has any effect at all, including at the early stages of a game.
The only way to show undisputed advantage between the 2 emphasis would be to save the same game twice i.e. 4000BC emphasise prod to 3000BC emphasise prod . 4000BC emphasise food to etc. Which I’ve tried on a new game, but I really can’t see any difference, and if the difference is too subtle to see, it may not be an advantage in the overall game.

(Please note I’m at SID level only by reloading, otherwise I would probably be at warlord ).

Vmxa your going to get me blagging again. I have played small world games from day one on old slow computers and faster newer ones which appears to be shorter concentrated games versus standard world games. I think people who are clearly interested in the game and fair play avoid looking at the top end of difficultly (i.e. sid games / sid games small world ). And the HOF small world sid games look as boring as hell to play. 2 of the 3 domination games are won with warriors and mounted warriors, and with less than the maximum allowed countries. Boring. Games should be at least half way through advances i.e at least be at 2 out of 4 eras, certainly not still in the ancient era when won.
This is important, because this is where we are all going, to SID level. I accept that you can get interesting games at lower difficulty levels, when sticking to HOF rules particularly with regard the loading games rule ( point taken about the 300 loaded game, my games are probably loaded 3000+ times ) but I’m not convinced this generally translates to interesting sid games using HOF rules at least not with respect to small world games.

Still on the ropes, Mike.

 

[Aabraxan]

Mike, I'd agree that the extra food from the irrigated cow is independent of the governor settings. That's part of what I'm saying. I don't want the governor to emphasize food, because I'm going to do that. The only benefit I can get from the emphasis setting is on growth.

Tell ya what . . . I'm going to see if I can put together a save and demonstration and I'll put it in another thread, so as to quit hijacking this one.

 

[templar_x]

Reloads do occur, even though the games are supposed to be check for excessive reloads. Not sure what execessive is as one of the best know games was reloaded over 300 times and is still in the HoF.

vmxa - in my understanding, a single reload would disqualify a game for the HOF. not so? or do you mean by "reload" any time one loads the latest save? i understood reload means loading not the latest save and continuing from there.
while the first could happen as many times as it will, the second would clearly be against the rules.

btw, how do you know how many times a hof game was reloaded?

templar_x

 

[mikenine1962]

Templar, here is an private message sent today to Denniz (admin ) asking the same thing, reloading is probably one of the vaguest HOF rules. If I get anything useful back I'll post it.

Hi Denniz,
I have won one Sid small world 6 country game, reloading probably over 3000 times. I have been very interested in discussions about reloading games. There is apparently a game on the HOF that has been reloaded over 300 times.

My question is how do you count the amount of times a hof game has been reloaded, can I count the reloads of a hof game.

I have been admiring this game by spoonwood on the hof

can you tell me how many times it was reloaded and would I be able to find this out anywhere myself.

SID standard world 6 Spoonwood 8497 1370 AD Sumeria

ps how do you add a link to a civIII file thats on your computer so that it can be seen when you make a comment on disscussion threads.

Mike

 

[templar_x]

mike - there is no doubt that reloading like you describe it is disallowed, and there is no doubt it should be. the rules are not at all vague on that matter in my eyes.

to put it blunt: if you play and something happens that you do not like, like losing a fight, and you reload as many times as it is necessary to win that fight, this game will not be permitted for the HOF. even ONE SINGLE RELOAD of that kind would disqualify it.

plus, you probably have "preserve random seed" switched off, which already by itself disqualifies the game for the HOF.

nobody is going to object to you doing this for your solo games. but it is a fact that it breaks the rules of any game if one player (here you=the human player) can go back and forth as often as he wants to in order to get the results he wants and continues from there.

if you have any doubts about this, try a game of chess with anyone you know and ask whether he would acknowledge a fair victory of yours if you can take back any moves you made and the other player can´t.

templar_x

 

[Aabraxan]

Mike, something else occurred to me. I seem to recall that something about having +4 food monkeys with the governor. That may be affecting the Entremont save, but I'll try to put that demo together this weekend.

 

[Spoonwood]

Aabraxan, and Spoonwood, at the risk of more punishment on the ropes I was looking at the contact governor settings for Sid level small world HOF wins and I didn't come across any governor settings with production ticked a lot / most had food ticked I looked at ( domination and diplomacy and cultural wins), one or two games had no governor options ticked.

Unfortuantely, this doesn't come as relevant. Look, first things first:
Your principle of food over production in general works well. Basically all experienced players agree on that principle . I haven't tried to dispute your principle here, I don't think Aabraxan has, nor has Templar_X, nor VMXA. We all agree. So, please don't make any mistake here, I haven't tried to "punish" you. I've tried to clarify the distinction between this principle, and how one can implement well in the game to maximize both food and production, at least in principle.

In terms of the game, on a turn-by-turn basis emphasize food, does NOT give one extra food. However, emphasize production does. There exists a very simple way to test this.
1. Fire up a game, preferably with an agricultural tribe.
2. Plant a settler.
3. Click enter until 1 turn before the city grows.
3a. Put emphasize production on.
4a. Note how many shields the city has before it grows in the box #(P_1).
5a. Click next turn.
6a. Note how many shields the city has in the box after it grows #(P_2).
7a. Compute the difference #(P_2)-#(P_1).
Then one reloads the game and 3a becomes
3b. Put emphasize food on.
4b. Note how many shields the city has before it grows in the box #(F_1).
5b. Click next turn.
6b. Note how many shields the city has in the box after it grows #(F_2).
7b. Compute the difference #(F_2)-#(F_1).

If you do this experiment, I predict you'll find that #(P_2)-#(P_1) comes out greater than #(F_2)-#(F_1). I predict you also won't find any extra food in the box after growth. Given that happens in your experiment, the simple conclusion here comes as that on a turn-by-turn basis, emphasize production produces more goods overall.

Now, you may indeed speak correctly that for yourself and for the HoF games referenced, emphasize food works out better. I do not dispute that in the slightest. The problem comes as how do we know how many times you've opened up the city screen when a city grows? If one never opens up a city screen when it grows, then 'emphasize food' will indeed work better in terms of growth, and almost surely in terms of production also. However, if one often or usually opens up a city screen when a city grows, then 'emphasize production' will give one a better overall output in terms of overall food, shields, and commerce, since upon growth one gets extra production in terms of shields, which as the experiment above hopefully will demonstrate, does NOT happen for food. With respect to what you said here:

The only way to show undisputed advantage between the 2 emphasis would be to save the same game twice i.e. 4000BC emphasise prod to 3000BC emphasise prod . 4000BC emphasise food to etc.

I find that an interesting thought. However, it still won't show an undisputed advantage in general, because there doesn't exist anything concerning how often the city screen gets opened and toyed with upon growth (or 'micromanagement'.) A player who micromanages often enough with 'emphasize production' WILL outdo a player who micromanages on every turn with 'emphasize food' on, in terms of overall food, shields, and production. This will happen due to the fact that on a turn-by-turn basis 'emphasize production' produces more production, while 'emphasize food' and 'emphasize commerce' NEVER produce more food or commerce under those same conditions. The only thing here comes as that I can't tell exactly what often enough means, and it no doubt varies from game to game. However, hopefully that doesn't pose a difficulty in understanding that 'emphasize production' DOES give one an extra shield upon growth. I know the city has read that I have '3 turns' left on a warrior, and I get it the next turn due to the 'emphasize production' setting. I know other players around here have also. I predict that nothing similar with 'emphasize food' on will happen.

 

[Spoonwood]

Originally Posted by mikenine1962 View Post
Aabraxan, Can you explain what abbreviations OTOH IIUC stand for. and IIRC and IOW

with respect to HoF games, the 20k game becomes completely different. You just turn random-seed off, and reload until you get an SGL on every tech you research

Spoonwood Can you explain SGL stands for.
They may or many not reload, no real need to as they would just abandon the game and start a new one, if they do not get the SGL with the correct timing. What most do is to run a map gen app and set up some parms.

This only addresses the initial SGL or initial set of SGLs. Yes, HoF players do fire up another suitable game generated by MapFinder for a 20k until they get an SGL on the first (or second) tech. Or if they don't get say 3 SGLs in the ancient age (archphoenix). However, they can't realistically get one for EVERY or almost every (60-100%) tech. With 'preserve random seed' off, they could do this.

This forces only games with the required things to be saved. Then they select the best one and play, if it fails in some way, they either select another or run off a new set.

I think I agree with what you said here. I would add that in my experience, "the best one" only comes as an inital impression based on the parameters specified (or 'parms' as you put it, I believe). I seriously doubt that if one knew what several MapFinder games looked 40 turns in, one would rank them the same way as one did just from the initial starting position, for plenty of HoF VCs. I've had plenty of lovely looking 20k games, really better in terms of initial position than some of my HoF games, which I either abandonded due to having a neighbor, or I got conquered early on, or my curragh sunk, or some other misfortune occured.

Reloads do occur, even though the games are supposed to be check for excessive reloads. Not sure what execessive is as one of the best know games was reloaded over 300 times and is still in the HoF.

I believe there's a suggestion in the HoF forum from Tone that playsessions should come as 30 minutes or more. I don't know how they do all their checking, for sure. The counter for 'reloading' you've referenced here, no doubt, comes as 'any time a save gets loaded'. Almost all games have to get 'reloaded' in that sense. But, that's not the sense of 'reload' generally used in the HoF rulebook. Games sometimes crash, and thus get 'reloaded', but that's not the sense either. The rulebook read:

Reloading:

Reloading a save to try and change game events is not allowed. You may reload if the game crashes, you have started a new playsession. Games with reload rates deemed to be less than 30 minutes per session will not be accepted. Reloading to avoid triggering Domination is no longer permitted, as this is easily avoidable via the Victory Status screen or through use of a MapStat utility.

can you tell me how many times it was reloaded and would I be able to find this out anywhere myself.

SID standard world 6 Spoonwood 8497 1370 AD Sumeria

The '6' here just ends up that way, because I didn't play the game in one playsession. I saved the game, went on with my life, came back, then played, 6 times until I finished (I thought it took me more times on that one, but whatever).

To upload a save click on 'go advanced' then 'manage attachments' then 'browse' then load in the file, and finally 'upload'. The first step or two or three come as what you need, hopefully you can figure out the rest without too much trouble.

 

[Spoonwood]

Below you'll find 4 saves which show that 'emphasize production' gives more production upon growth (check the governors at your leisure). Since all cities grow in the same way as this one, due to the nature of the computer program civ III, 'emphasize production' always gives more (or the same) production as does 'emphasize food' upon growth. So, for a game played on a turn-by-turn basis, 'emphasize production' will outproduce a game played on the same basis with 'emphasize food' on.